


Breachy

by Justmenoworries



Category: Showdown Bandit (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Mutilation, Paranoia, and Penny I guess, just my personal headcanon about Faceless Bandit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 12:21:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20866151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justmenoworries/pseuds/Justmenoworries
Summary: The story of a little Bandit who got too curious.





	Breachy

It happens suddenly, without warning.  
  
It had been a normal day in Showdown Valley. Showdown Bandit, infamous outlaw and protector of the valley he had been named after had just been returning from a friendly visit in Penny’s store. Not to rob her, of course. He might be a bandit, but even he isn’t lawless enough to harass someone as sweet and kind as Miss Penny Hemsworth. The Sheriff would have his head if he did.  
  
But right after he’d left the store, just as he was thinking about paying the Banker a little visit, it happened.  
  
The string on his right hand snapped.  
  
At first he’s not sure what to do, staring at his now limb arm. This isn’t supposed to happen. “Guard your strings” is a simple rule and yet, somehow, without even knowing how, he broke it. He should be scared. He should panic. He should run over to Doc Carver as fast as possible and get himself fixed.  
  
Instead he just...looks at it. Looks at his stringless arm.  
  
And wonders.  
  
And then Bandit gets an idea.  
  
A stupid, crack-brained, horrible idea.  
  
The kind of idea that gets you pulled off-stage faster than you can say “draw”.  
  
But as brain-dead as it might be, he knows he’ll forever be wondering if he doesn’t try it out. And so Bandit takes a deep breath...and raises his stringless arm.  
  
Alone.  
  
Without the puppeteers help.  
  
For a second, he’s scared. That’s two out of three rules he’s broken today. “Play your part”. But really, all he did was raise his arm. That’s nothing too bad, right? Right? Bandit waits for some kind of punishment from above, waits to be harshly yanked up like he’s seen other puppets be yanked when they were taking a little too long to get into position, but nothing happens. He stays right where he is.  
  
Now he really wants to know. Bandit raises his arm higher, waves it around, curls and uncurls his fist. Nothing.  
  
“Well I’ll be,” he mumbles.  
  
He’s not sure what to do with this new information yet. But he sure as heck isn’t going to let this get fixed anytime soon. Moving on your own feels...really nice. And Bandit can’t help but wonder...would it feel even nicer if the other strings were gone too?

* * *

  
The next few days continue on as normal. Bandit has almost forgotten about his little accident the other day. He still hasn’t paid Doc Carver a visit. And to be completely honest, he isn’t planning to. It’s just one string anyway.  
  
But then it happens.  
  
He’s on an errand for Farmer Mill, collecting some water for his turnip crop in The Wild when he encounters a stringless. He’s heard of them, of course. Ain’t a soul in Showdown Valley who hasn’t. They roam the place, staggering and screeching, waiting for any puppet foolish enough to let their guard down. In this case, him.  
  
Before he can dodge out of the way, the Stringless gives a gurgling scream and swipes at him, cutting the string connected to his left leg clean in half. Bandit yelps, stumbling backwards almost dropping the bucket with Famer Mill’s water in the process. The Stringless gives a triumphant cry, thinking it has him beaten already and lunges forward again.  
  
Too bad these things seems to have forgotten that Showdown Bandit wears the title of fastest draw in the valley for a reason. It takes him less than a second to pull out his trusty cork gun and fire at the Stringless’s head. It screeches in pain one last time before falling over and not getting up again.  
  
Bandit smirks and blows some imaginary fume off his gun barrel.  
  
“That was some mighty fine shootin’ there, Bandit.”  
  
He jumps and turns to look right into the amused eyes of Miss Lorelei Undertaker.  
  
Bandit chuckles nervously. He’s never quite sure what to think of her. He knows she’s the one in charge of keeping the dead in line and locked up in the graveyard (not that he’s doing such a shabby job with that, he smugly thinks to himself) and quite frankly, she unnerves him on his best days. There’s just something ominous about her that he can’t place. The way she can enter and exit a room without anyone noticing, how ruthlessly she disposes of stringless puppets without caring that they might have been people she knew once and how she always has this _look_ in her eyes as if she knows something he doesn’t. Maybe it just comes with the job, Bandit thinks.  
  
“Aw shucks, wasn’t nothin’, Miss Lorelei,” he says out loud, grinning and scratching the back of his neck.  
  
Miss Undertaker chuckles slightly and saunters over to him. “Hm. Though I have to say, seems like he did a fair amount of damage himself.” Before he can react, she extends a slender hand and dangles his earliest loose string in front of him. Bandit gulps inwardly. Miss Undertaker is a stickler for the rules, more so than anyone else in the valley. If she suspects for even a second that he’s breaking them, she’ll rat him out for sure.  
  
As if she heard his thoughts, Miss Undertaker suddenly squints her eyes at something and leans forward slightly. With how close they are and with how tall of a woman she is, she’s practically looming over him now. Bandit can’t help but shrink in on himself a little when he notices just what it is she’s looking at.  
  
“My, my,” she says, eyeing his stringless, arm. “You oughtta be more careful with your strings, Bandit.” Her eyes meet his and suddenly there is a steely look inside them that makes Bandit shiver. “Wouldn’t wanna end up like that poor fella’ lyin’ over there now, would we?”  
  
“N-no, ‘course not,” he squeaks out, clutching onto the bucket to keep his hands from shaking.  
  
“Good.”  
  
The chilling look is gone as quickly as it came. Miss Undertaker steps away from him, and Bandit releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.  
  
“I suggest you pay the Doc a visit, Bandit,” she tells him, walking over to the door she presumably came out of, leading into one of Showdown Valley many safe crossroads. “And soon.”  
  
Bandit waits until he’s sure he can’t hear her footsteps anymore. Then he turns around and makes his way over to the door farthest away from the one Miss Undertaker took, as quickly as possible and not looking back.

* * *

  
“You _cut _yer own string?” Penny whispers harshly and anxiously. “Are you outta yer goddamn mind?”  
  
“Just one, Ms. Penny,” Bandit answers in a pacifying voice. “Wasn’t that hard, really. Didn’t even hurt. And look!”  
  
He raises his now stringless left hand and waves it in front of her. “Nothin’s different! I can still move and talk ‘n all!”  
  
Penny does not look half as excited about this discovery as he was when he made it. She’s retreated farther and farther away from the store’s counter he’s currently leaning on, pressing her back against the shelf as if she wants it to swallow her whole and eyeing his free hand so aghast you’d think it was the horse plague.  
  
“You should get that fixed, Bandit,” she says, voice strained. “And fast!”  
  
Bandit rolls his eyes and steps off the counter. “Relax, Miss Penny. Nothin’ bad’s happened to me yet. An’ I don’t think it will.”  
  
Penny gulps. “B-But...the rules-”  
  
  
“Ya’ wanna know what I think about the rules?” Bandit grins, crossing his arms. “I think whoever’s up there made ‘em up. Think about it Penny! What’s the one thing stoppin’ us from just moving when we want to? Talking whenever _we _want to, not when the script tells us to do it? What’s the one thing the big guys upstairs have to keep us in line?”  
  
“The...the strings?”  
  
“Yer damn right! Only thing they’ve got to keep us under their thumbs are those little strings. So of course they wouldn’t want us to just go slicin’ them off when we feel like it. So they can keep yankin’ us around like rented mules! But it don’t have to be this way, Penny.” He leans on he counter, an excited spark in his eyes. “Things here in Showdown Valley’ve been goin’ the same way day after day after day and there weren’t nothin’ we could do about it! But now that we know those,” he flicks his remaining strings. “Don’t do anythin’ we could just...pull ‘em off! Be our own puppets! Tell or own stories! Just think about it. You wouldn’t be forced to hang around the store all day, you could wander around, maybe become an outlaw yerself if ya feel like it!”  
  
Penny’s eyes have grown wider and wider with every word he’s spoken. For a moment she looks honestly torn and Bandit feels hope well up inside his chest. If he can just get her to _understand_, they could team up. Convince the rest of the Valley to rebel. Maybe even Miss Undertaker, she’s always had a soft spot for Penny.  
  
But those hopes are shattered when Penny sighs and shakes her head.  
  
“I...I’ve got a good life here, Bandit,” she says quietly. “It ain’t much, but it’s still good. An’ I’d like it to stay that way.” She turns away from him, unable to bear the utter heartbreak in his eyes. “I’m sorry but...you really should keep goin’. The Sheriff’s gonna be here anytime soon.”  
  
It’s clear that she considers the conversation to be over. Bandit opens his mouth to say something more, but then thinks better of it and just turns around to exit her shop. It shows how deep in thought he is that he realizes way too late he’s not alone outside.  
  
A strong hand grasps his shoulder, wrenches him around and slams him against the wall. Bandit yelps, hand grabbing at his cork gun only to see the barrel of one leveled right between his eyes.  
  
“Look who it is,” a deep gravelly voice says. “Harassin’ Miss Hemsworth, are ya’? An’ here I thought you had at least some standards left.”  
  
Bandit gulps audibly, slowly raising his hands and shaking his head. He’s no Miss Undertaker but Showdown Valley’s sheriff commands a whole lot of respect on his own.  
  
“I-I wasn’t harrassin’ her,” Bandit protests, eyes never leaving the gun. “We were just havin’ a friendly chat is all.”  
  
The sheriff’s ever present scowl deepens. “That ain’t what it sounded like to me.”  
  
Bandit stiffens. How long has this guy been standing right outside the general store? How much did he hear? And more importantly: What is he planning on doing to him now? Bandit hasn’t done anything wrong, not really. And he wasn’t lying: All Penny and him did was talk. For a while him and the sheriff just stand there, not speaking a single word.  
  
Then the sheriff sighs and lets go of Bandit, making him stumble a bit in surprise.  
  
“Look boy,” he says, holstering his cork gun. “Miss Hemsworth’s got it right. We all have a good life here. And believe it or not, yer part o’ that too. Don’t ya think it’d be a darn shame to lose all that? Just for some imaginary freedom?”  
  
Bandit frowns. “What do ya’ mean, ‘lose’?”  
  
The sheriff meets his eyes. “Exactly that. What do ya’ think happens to them that try to break the rules, Bandit?”  
  
Bandit shakes his head. He’s more than a bit wary now. The sheriff is normally never this civil or understanding when they talk. In fact, this is probably the first time they're actually talking _at all_. “No, I don’t. Nothin’?”  
  
“Ya’ really think that, do ya’ boy?” The sheriff chuckles and shakes his head. “They get pulled off-stage, Bandit. And replaced. For good.”  
  
Bandit stares at him. Replaced? Pulled off-stage? But surely he would ave noticed…  
  
“They… they can’t do that,” he whispers. “That ain’t… Yer just tryin’ to scare me!”  
  
The sheriff’s eyes are full of pity. “Figure my cork gun’d be doin’ a way better job at that. Nah, boy. I’m just tellin’ ya how it is. Before ya’ find out the hard way.”  
  
Bandit clenches his hand into fists to keep them from trembling.  
  
If the sheriff’s noticed just how much he’s affected him with that little harsh truth, he doesn’t let it show.  
  
“Mark my words, boy,” he says, already turning around to leave. “You Bandits come and go and nobody blinks a wooden eye. They’re toleratin’ yer shenanigans for now. But you’d best get them strings o’ yours fixed soon. Or there’ll be a new fastest draw in Showdown Valley.”  
  
Bandit says nothing. He can’t. He just stands there and watches, frozen in terror as the older puppet disappears into the shadows.

* * *

  
More days go by. No more strings snap.  
  
Bandit just can’t bring himself to even look at them anymore. He’s more scared than he’s ever been in his life. Every time he feels the slightest tug on his remaining strings he expects to be hoisted up into the big nothing above that he is not allowed to look at. Part of him wants to just give in. To go to Doc Carver, get his strings repaired and then play his part like a good little puppet and hope the ones upstairs aren’t ones to hold a grudge.  
  
But he just can’t forget how it felt to actually move on his own, to not have his body yanked around randomly on the whim of some supposedly benevolent string-puller who’s face he’s never even seen. And the thought of giving that up just feels… wrong. Unfair.  
  
His performance is lacking these days and he knows it. He just can’t focus and it only gets worse with time. His heists go wrong almost as soon as he steps up to the bank, when he tries to help he does more harm than good and even his aim falters more and more.  
  
One day Bandit finds himself wandering around the Valley again when he notices something… odd. The crossroads here are usually inhabited by the Banker and Penny, but when he gets closer the bank-stand is empty and the general store’s door is closed tight. No amount of knocking and calling seems to bring either of them out.  
  
Bandit feels a shiver running down his spine. This isn’t good.  
  
He feels a tap on his shoulder and whirls around, cork gun at the ready. Miss Undertaker looks down at him, an amused smile on her face. “Well don’t you just look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet. I ain’t a Stringless yet Bandit, put that away.”  
  
He does so, though reluctantly. He hasn’t seen Miss Undertaker since their run-in in the Wild all those days ago. And he can’t say that he's been specifically unhappy about that.  
  
“Where’d everybody go?” he asks cautiously.  
  
Miss Undertaker raises a wooden eyebrow. “Ya’ look a bit ruffled,” she states, ignoring his question. “Why don’t ya’ come on over for a some tea in my humble home?”  
  
Bandit knows an order when he hears one. He doesn’t want to go with her, he really doesn’t. All of his senses are screaming at him that this is wrong, this is a trap, but no one else is around who could answer his questions and going back out into the Wild where the Stringless roam around is not an option. He cannot lose more strings right now.  
  
So he just grits his teeth, nods and follows her reluctantly.  
  
The Graveyard is even more spooky than he’s imagined it. The big ominous grill doors with the iron puppet heads adorning them seem to stare at him as he walks by. Miss Undertaker hasn’t spoken a word to him since they walked off. It does nothing to ease his growing anxiety. His hand has practically been hovering over his cork gun again the second her back was turned. Bandit never thought they day would come where he’d seriously consider shooting a lady but for some reason the deed doesn’t seem all that outrageous anymore.  
  
The door to her hut squeaks when she opens it. They both step inside and she guides him over to a small table. Bandit takes a seat at her suggestion, his eyes never leaving her. She disappears into a small room in the back for a second and comes out carrying two small, steaming cups, one of which she places in front of him. The silence is heavy. Bandit can’t help but feel trapped. He shouldn’t have come here.  
  
“Now Bandit,” Miss Undertaker says, startling him out of his thoughts. “I think yer usin’ the wrong hand there.” Her tone is as polite as ever, but her eyes have that steely look in them again. The same she had when she told him to go fix his strings back then.  
  
Bandit’s right hand clutches the handle of his cork gun on its own. “Beggin’ yer pardon Miss Undertaker, but I don’t think I am,” he replies coldly, not breaking eye contact.  
  
“_I_ think you are,” she repeats. “Be a dear and put that gun on the table where I can see it. Wouldn’t want any accidents now, would we?”  
  
At least she’s not telling him to put it away for good. Bandit obliges, if only to get her in a better mood. He lays his gun on the table right in front of him, not too far away.  
  
“Now was that so hard?”  
  
Bandit doesn’t know what irritates him more: the patronizing tone in her voice or the fact that she knows she has him in her clutches and seems to relish every second of it.  
  
“I’ve heard some mighty interestin’ things about you, Bandit,” Miss Undertaker starts again, eyes on her tea cup, stirring it with a small spoon. “You’ve got yer feathers quite ruffled these days. Runnin’ around breakin’ yer strings… talkin’ poor Miss Hemsworth into yer foolishness. You know you ought not be doin’ that, don’t you?” Her eyes snap up to fixate on him again. “The rules are the rules, Bandit.”  
  
Bandit doesn’t flinch. He hasn’t been in so many standoffs across his life to be cowed now. “Well maybe,” he answers slowly. “’The rules’ ain’t as necessary as you an’ the ones up there want us to think they are. Maybe ya just want us all to think that so ya’ can keep control of us. And _maybe_ everyone would be happier than a witch at a broom factory without those rules _and _those strings.”  
  
None of them says anything for a few seconds. Bandit is on edge. He knows that was the wrong thing to say. But no matter what happens now, he sure as hell isn’t going to go down without a fight. But then Miss Undertaker breaks the silence and chuckles, lifting her cup to take a sip. Bandit blinks, slightly taken aback.  
  
When she lowers the cup again, she’s smiling.  
  
“Welp, I tried to be nice,” she says cheerfully. Then all of a sudden she jumps up, shovel out and raised high over her head.  
  
Bandit yelps and tries to grab for his gun, but before he can get it he feels something heavy hit him right in the head. The impact throws him to the floor and before he can gather his wits and figure out what to do he feels another hit coming down, accompanied by a sickening crunch and another white-hot burst of pain. And another and another. Bandit screams. It hurts. It hurts so much more than every single hit he’s ever had to endure from a Stringless.  
  
It takes him a moment to realize that everything has gone black. The blows stop coming for a moment, giving him the chance to shakily raise his hands to his face. What he feels makes him sick to his stomach, even more than the pain. His eyes. His eyes are gone. Miss Undertaker has gouged out his eyes. He won’t be able to use the cork gun anymore. Hell, he won’t even be able to _reach_ it! In just a few moments she’s made him completely helpless.  
  
“It really is a darn shame you know,” he hears Miss Undertaker say, though for some reason it sounds like he’s underwater, muffled and far away. “I’ve grown awfully fond of you. Poor little thing, if only you’d been a good little Bandit.”  
  
She’ll kill him.  
  
She’ll honest to god kill him!  
  
Panic makes him desperate. He claws at the floor, at the table’s leg, anything he can, tries to pull himself up. He can feel her watching him, he can feel her still smiling down at him, shovel at the ready. Like a farmer watching the dying breaths of an old dog. It makes him angry. What right does she have to do this to him? What right do the ones up there have to do this to him? It’s not fair. He just wanted freedom. He just wanted _those damn strings off_!  
  
His hand strikes against something. Though he can barely make out the shape with what’s left of his sight, he’s had it in his hands so often he’d recognize it anywhere: the cork gun, still lying where he left it. Somehow he manages to grab it and turn around, breathing heavily and aiming at the tall blur that is now Miss Undertaker in his vision.  
  
He hears her huff in amusement. “Now darlin’, that ain’t much use to you now.”  
  
“We’ll see about that,” he rasps, voice rough from screaming. And fires.  
  
He wishes he could see the look on her face. But the sound of the bullet hitting her square in the stomach, coupled with her surprised ‘omph!’ and the sound of her toppling over onto the floor will have to do for now. He wastes no time. He half runs, half stumbles towards and out of the door and doesn’t stop, even when he enters the Wild again.  
  
It is only here that he notices his remaining two strings have snapped. It’s an odd thing to notice now of all times. He doesn’t even know when it happened. He’s been attacked by Stringless during his escape, sure, but if that was when it happened, he ‘s been too distracted to care. He realizes he’s still clutching his cork gun.  
  
He hasn’t been able to use it against the Stringless. His eyesight was fine enough in Miss Undertaker’s house where there was light and a big enough target, but out in the darkness his once most trusted weapon is about as useful as his bare hands.  
  
He hears footsteps coming up behind. Fear flares up in him and he runs.  
  
He doesn’t know how long it’s been or if whoever’s footsteps he heard is still behind him, when he suddenly crashes into something, the impact throwing him backwards onto the floor. Or rather, someone.  
  
“Sweet jesus, boy,” he hears the sheriff’s sad voice murmur. “What the devil have you gotten yourself into?”  
  
Bandit can’t help it: he bursts into tears. “Sheriff, I-I can’t see, please, I-I can’t-”  
  
“Oh quit yer sobbin’, boy. Ya got yerself into that mess,” the sheriff snaps. Bandit feels a hand roughly grabbing his shoulder and hosting him up. The next thing he knows, something warm and soft is being wrapped around his body.  
  
“W-what-?”  
  
“She’ll be lookin’ for a Bandit. So make sure ya’ don’t look like one. I’ve had this coat for years now, it’ll do a good enough job of throwin’ her off for a time.”  
  
Bandit is speechless for a second. “Why are you doin’ this for me?”  
  
He gets no answer at first.  
  
“Cause this is just plain wrong. An’ the last time I checked, a sheriff was supposed to be helpin’ folks who been wronged.” Gently but firmly the sheriff turns him around and walks him a few steps before slowly letting go and pressing something long and wooden into Bandit’s hands. “It ain’t much, but you’ll need all the help ya can get. Now off with ya. I’ll tell her you went the other way.”

* * *

  
  
The first few days are the hardest.  
  
The staff the sheriff gave him helps some, but he still finds himself constantly running into walls and the Stringless catch him off-guard more than once. He’s pretty glad he can’t see his own face in the mirror anymore. By now it’s got to be nothing but splinters and scars. Pain and fear are his only companions. He doesn’t dare set foot into the town anymore. He doesn’t know why he still keeps going but he does.  
  
Miss Undertaker is still hunting for him. He can hear her calling, deceptively sweet and caring, but with a cutting edge. Unbeknownst to her, she’s given him an advantage when she took his eyes. Without his sight, he has to learn and adapt to the ever-present darkness in the valley. Meaning unlike her, he doesn’t need the light of the crossroads to find his way. Corners that are pitch-black to her are basically mapped out to him after a while.  
  
But what remains a problem are the Stringless. They don’t seem to care he’s one of them now. Their attacks keep coming and sometimes they get so vicious it's all he can do to get away. One attack sees the end of his coat’s sleeves. He barely manages to fend that one off with his staff and make a run for the nearest door.  
  
He ditched the cork gun long ago. At first he was clinging to it like a lifeline, but eventually he couldn't deny the fact that it was about as useful to him as a candle in his current state anymore. So he dropped it somewhere along the way, feeling as if his tiny wooden heart might burst. The staff is fine for defense, but it makes a poor weapon. Stringless are deterred by it, but nothing more.  
  
Then, one day, he finds the room. It’s wide and bright, so bright he can even see a little. A table is sitting at it's side and after some fuzzing, he manages to climb it. That’s where he finds the saw-blade. Riffled and rusty, but still sharp. A few good knocks and some loose string and his white cane turns into a scythe. And after exiting the room and downing a few Stringless with only one swipe, he finds he likes this new development quite a lot.  
  
He wanders off into the darkness of the studio, an ominous ‘tock tock tock’ accompanying his every move.

* * *

  
They call him the Faceless Bandit.  
  
Miss Penny Hemsworth has never seen him with her own eyes, but judging by his Wanted Posters, that’s not at all a bad thing.  
  
They say he roams the valley, in search of those who wronged him (whoever they might be) and god bless any poor puppet, stringless or not, that gets in his way. His scythe cuts fast and he feels no pain.  
  
Penny can’t help but feel he’s had something to do with the disappearance of her friend. She hasn’t seen Bandit in days and she grows more worried with every hour he fails to show up at her shop’s doorstep with a smile on his face and his usual bravado.  
  
_They got him_, she thinks. _They got him for breaking the rules an’ now he’s gone.  
  
_Is this what will happen to her if she ever breaks them? Will she just disappear too, killed by some faceless entity out in the Wild, with no one the wiser?  
  
Penny Hemsworth is more scared than she’s ever been in her life.  
  
_I have my strings_, she tries to calm herself. _I play my part, I always do. They can’t get me._  
  
Oh, but what if she looks up? It could happen.  
  
It could happen.  
  
And then she’ll be a rule-breaker.  
  
And then they’ll come for her.  
  
Unless…  
  
Unless.

* * *

  
  
The store is closed down the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> Faceless is terrifying, but he's also an awesome character with a lot of potential down the line.
> 
> Watch episode 2 come out and make this little one-shot age like milk, lol.


End file.
